UK internet connections show 8.2% rise in
year to Feb.
National Statistics has released the latest
monthly update to the survey of Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) which shows that between February 2003 and February 2004
there was an 8.2 per cent increase in the number of active
subscriptions to the Internet in the UK.
There was a per cent change between January 2004
and February 2004.
The market share for permanent connections
continued to increase in February and now stands at 24.3 per
cent compared with 12.6 per cent a year before. Dial-up
connections decreased in February 2004 in contrast to January's
increase in activity.
Dial-up versus permanent Internet connections
In February 2004,the indices for dial-up and
permanent subscriptions were 102.6 and 4026 respectively.
Subscriptions for dial-up and permanent Internet
connections continued to show quite different patterns of annual
growth. The year on year decrease to February 2004 was 5.7 per
cent for dial-up connections with a decrease of 0.5 per cent
from January 2004 to February 2004.There was a year on year
increase of 100.3 per cent for permanent connections with a
monthly increase of 5.9 per cent.
Dial-up connections continued to dominate the
overall number of subscriptions, but with permanent connections
continuing to increase their market share.
Permanent connections made up 24.3 per cent of
total subscriptions in February 2004,up from 23.1 per cent in
January 2004.This increase in the market share reflects the
continued marketing drive and increase in availability of
broadband services.
Access plans
In February, the percentage of subscriptions
using free access or billed access was 38 per cent, compared
with 43 per cent a year before. The percentage of those paying a
fixed rate for unmetered access was 32 per cent. The percentage
of subscriptions using a mixed plan (fixed rate plus calls) was
6 per cent, while 'Always-on ' subscriptions rose to 24 per cent
compared with 13 per cent in February 2003.
Table 1R, accessible on the National Statistics
website, summarises the revisions to the figures published on 16
March 2004.The entire index is reviewed each month to ensure
that ONS publishes its best estimates. The revisions can occur
due to company misreporting, late returns or additions to the
panel of ISPs.
